Providence Local News

DNA test to be done after NJ casket had wrong body

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The daughter of a New Jersey woman whose casket contained the wrong body says DNA tests will be performed to determine if her mother was accidentally cremated in Canada.

Lisa Kondvar of Warwick, R.I., and her family discovered someone else's body in Margaret Porkka's casket last month at a New Jersey funeral home. Porkka had died unexpectedly during a trip to St. Maarten over Thanksgiving.

The family suspects Porkka's body was confused with a Canadian woman's and cremated. A detective in Barrie, Ontario, said the woman in Porkka's casket has been identified as 82-year-old Kathleen Togwell. She's being returned to Canada.

Kondvar says bodily fluids were recovered from a casket in Canada that might have contained her mother's body. The family has sent Porkka's hairbrush and toothbrush for DNA testing.